I never understood people who pay for sex, until one day when I decided to do it myself. Not like the Swedish performance artist who slept with a prostitute and filmed it to show how wrong it is. In my case, it was about my dog Signe, whose genes I believed must be passed on. Not so much for her sake as for my own. I was thinking long-term, so that when our beloved dog one day passed away, her puppies would remain and provide us with a diluted version of our beloved Signe.

I found the perfect male and made a tentative call to the owner, a woman from the Swedish Midlands. She assured me that her male certainly wasn't shooting blanks, having successfully impregnated several females before. I asked rather shyly how I would know exactly when it was time to drive down with Signe. The woman replied that I should massage her "ringpiece" a bit, and if she moved her tail aside, she was ready. I didn't dare ask any follow-up questions and later analysed whether something had been lost in the dialectal differences. In my part of the country, the ”ringpiece" refers to a different bodily opening. I considered calling back to clarify that I was prepared to pay for my dog to be impregnated, not violated. If she or her dog had any other ideas, shouldn't they be the ones paying me? Not that it was an option, but still. It's an important matter of principle. I wanted to buy sperm, not finance someone's sexual fantasy.

After a while, I calmed down and assumed she must have been referring to Signe's more reproductive parts. But the idea that I should massage her there didn't feel right either. Neither for Signe nor for me. Perhaps mostly for me. Should I put on a washing-up glove and then stand there rubbing my dog’s private parts? In my racing imagination, I pictured my wife coming home and surprising me, and the difficulties I'd have explaining what I was up to.

So one weekend I drove to this small town, come what may. Like a pimp. I had a feeling I'd return home with material for an entire novel. And who knew, even with an expectant bitch?

I had packed a cosy blanket, a small nurse's uniform in Signe's size, some scented candles, and prepared a Spotify playlist exclusively featuring Barry White. I envisioned an equal meeting between two mature dogs with the potential for romantic mating at the end. A beautiful vision that was shattered the moment I approached the farm outside the small town. A desolate, red-flagged cottage with a corrugated metal roof, half-overgrown by forest and wild greenery.

I parked by a barn with broken windows and saw chickens running freely around the unkempt property. A rusty car wreck from the 1930s rested in a grove, and in a fenced dog yard behind the barn, I could hear the yapping of two Rhodesian Ridgebacks. The owner came out to meet me, sporting freshly dyed hair and large, jangling jewellery around her wrists and neck. Like a hybrid between Frankenstein’s monster and Sharon Osbourne, I thought, before she ushered Signe and me into the house's kitchen.

I thought I'd walked into a butterfly house, as the room was filled with butterflies and flies competing for airspace. The sun filtered through the dirty windowpanes, and the shadows from the butterflies played on a brocade-patterned linoleum floor. The door to the rest of the cottage was closed, and the air was stuffy and musty as we sat down at a bare pine kitchen table with matching chairs. A daughter of about 16 leaned against a kitchen cabinet with a self-painted cat on it. She kept fiddling with her mobile. The mother slipped out quickly and returned with a Jack Russell male in her arms. She put him down on the floor, and I quickly realised that the nurse's uniform wouldn't be needed to get him interested. The problem was that Signe wasn't the least bit excited. I thought she showed it quite clearly by growling and snapping at the male when he came too close.

-She wants to, she's just playing around, the woman declared in broad Midland dialect. I considered offering a feminist perspective on that statement but realised this was neither the place, time, nor audience for it. The daughter cast disinterested glances at her dog who manically was trying to chisel his way into Signe, she then told her mum offhand that she needed a lift into town soon. Another stress factor. The woman urged me to hold Signe still, to make things easier for her male. Not exactly the Barry White method, and I felt very uncomfortable. Images from films like "Midnight Express" and "The Last Journey" popped into my head, and I had to react.

-I don't think this is going to work. Not like this, I said, choking up.

The woman decided to drive her daughter into town, and we agreed to meet up in a park with our dogs to see if things would work out better there. Signe and I probably had the same view of that kitchen; it created absolutely no desire for sex. Nor cooking, for that matter.

In the park, things changed. The dogs got to know each other and eventually started mating on their own initiative. The woman and I sat down beside them and watched in oppressive silence. Hers was probably more of the unconcerned, bored sort, while mine was more awkward and embarrassed. We held onto the dogs since they apparently can hurt themselves at the crucial moment.

-In case one of them decides to chase after a hare or something, the woman said routinely. At that moment, I just wanted to transform into a hare myself and hop deep into the forest and disappear.

Later I was sitting at home, studying Signe searchingly, trying to interpret every movement and action as proof that the journey wasn't in vain. That I wasn’t a wretched sex buyer who'd only come home with an abused dog and a story to write.

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